


Strike a Chord

by dentinthesystem



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-24
Updated: 2013-05-26
Packaged: 2017-12-06 07:03:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/732786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dentinthesystem/pseuds/dentinthesystem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cas' attempt at independence has taken a turn for the worse, when his career as an artist in New York backfires terribly. Broke and barely able to support himself, he is invited by his brother to return home to London - to be with his family. Yet Cas has come to love this city, and this newfound freedom, so completely that he can't stand to return. Grasping at a last opportunity to stay - a job designing album covers for a small, indie band - Cas must do all he can to live his own life, and make his own choices.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hired

**Author's Note:**

  * For [homicideltd](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=homicideltd).



At this point, Cas would have been willing to take any job he could, any chore or piece of work cast across his path. No matter how revolting – no matter how dull and confining. He lived in a small, dingy loft apartment – falling apart at the seams, by the look of it. A blank, decomposing space, in which rested a neatly made bed (sagging on its posts), and an old kitchen set. One corner was filled with what had once been Cas’ main, and only, source of income: his easel. Paints, brushes, and tool lay about, stacked with exact precision against walls, or atop his only functional shelf.

They hadn’t been touched. Not for weeks. At least not for useful purposes. When he could, he liked to do art for himself – but at this point, he couldn’t afford materials to waste. Everything he did had to be for some sort of income.

He hadn’t stolen anything. But the panging, empty pound of hunger in his gut didn’t care. The empty urge just wanted to be gone, filled up – no, he hadn’t stolen, or lied, or tricked. But he was goddamn close.

He’d called his father; God knows he had. But the phone just kept on ringing; he hadn’t answered Cas in months. His brothers, on the other hand, lived overseas. In old, ancient European cities. Most of them were hauled up in London. It had taken so long for Cas to admit where he’d settled – New York. So new, and so flashy, and so bright. Not that he didn’t love the old, he really did – spires and arches, and buildings older than this city itself.

But Cas was just too in love with this place; he wouldn’t leave, to the point where it was an almost physical pang – he couldn’t leave, not willingly anyway. This busy, complicated, fast-paced place – where you could look out the window and see all those hundreds of people tumbling by.

Gabe had sent him a cheque once, a few weeks ago. When Cas had managed to actually overcome the dread of embarrassment – being so far away, so secluded, and so broke; so far off the path any of them had ever idealized when they’d first embarked.

But Gabe had sent it. To keep him going. Enclosed had been in a letter – patronizing at first, but then pleading. Come back to London. Pull yourself together. And, the thing was, Cas almost wanted to. He just loved this newfound independence more. He was living off that cheque, right now.

That’s why he’d just been so utterly pleased to get that call. A gruff, straightforward man who must have been some sort of middle aged – late in them, by the sound of it.

“Need an artist to design a cover for an album. You know – music? I’m their manager – for the boys. Saw your flier at the museum.” Cas had almost whooped then, a smile breaking across his face. Almost screamed from delight, relief. All of it pouring over him at once. But he kept his tone cool, his composure in check.

“Yes,” he articulated slowly, trying his very best to be in control, to be professional. So his mish-mash attempt at advertising had worked. He continued as steadily as he could, suppressing the delighted tremor, “I would be interested in that project.”

He could hear the easy grin on the other side of the phone, “Hear your charges aren’t bad.”

“They’re not.” Come to think about it, Cas had never established a particular price; he’d just rolled with it. And he supposed he might as well roll with it now. “… What kind of band is this?”

“Independent,” the man said simply. “Progressive rock.” Cas nodded as if he understood all the various definitions of various types of rock, before he recalled that the man on the phone couldn’t see him.

“Great. When can we get you in?”

Cas checked his watch for a second, just giving himself something to do. The one on the wall above the door had long ago stopped working; he hadn’t bought new batteries. “One moment.” He tried to sound important as he said it. Not some low-life desperate for work – someone so barely known there was no reassurance of his quality (or morality, for that matter) at all. People didn’t trust starving artists.

Finally, he announced as officially and as stiff as he could manage, “I can’t be there today, maybe we can schedule for Friday?”

“Sure, kid.”

“And one last thing,” Cas added hastily at the end, his eagerness betraying him.

“Yeah?”

“I’d like to be paid in advance.”

There was a beat of silence, in which Cas dreaded – for a split instant – that he might have just blown it. But instead, the man progressed to give him the details of their band, their location, which time of day was best. And Cas scrawled it all down on a notepad as fast as and as subtly he could, pretending he was a successful enough businessman that he had a computer, that he was typing it all down at his leisure. And then, at the end, just as he was about to hang up, Cas caught the end of a different conversation – carried out in some fancy studio, in some fancy place, that had no idea they had hired a not-so-fancy artist. The man was snapping at someone, the gruff fatherly tone obvious now. Cas opened his mouth, wondering whether or not the man still realized he was on the phone. The manager hung up with a simple, last remark:  
“Balls. See you Friday.”


	2. Big Bang Studios

The studio wasn’t nearly has big and pretentious as Cas had assumed. So it was a strange mingle in his gut – the sink of disappointment, the rise of relief – that he jogged up the front steps one drizzly New York afternoon. The building was tall and thin, the old brick blending seamlessly with the old shops on either side. It was crammed between what looked to be a bar and a tattoo parlor. Not as classy as Cas had hoped, not something that would exactly gain him repute. The sign atop the door, “Big Bang Studios”, was faded to ugly meshes of nonexistent yellow and smeared browns. It hung crookedly. The “For Rent” sign was still there in the window, just flipped around so all passersby could see was a pale outline of the letters.

Cas hesitated for a second, collected his breathing. He knocked as firmly and professionally as he could on the dilapidated door, old overcoat – perhaps the only thing he owned that remained unscathed by paint – flapping in the brisk wind.

The door opened suddenly to reveal what looked, in the initial second, to be a giant. Dark bangs swept across his brow, falling in his eyes. Cas spoke immediately, “I’m – the artist. You hired. I -”

The man, practically still a boy, cut him off with an easy smile, “Oh, hey – c’mon in.” He opened the door wider and as Cas timidly followed him into the thin front hallway, the boy hollered, “Bobby! The artist’s here!” He lead him down the hall to where a stout balding man was looking something up on his smart phone. “Bobby, this is – the artist. Artist, this is Bobby.” The more Cas looked at him, the more rushed the boy seemed. “I’m gonna go and get some grub.”  
Bobby started up, “Boy -” but the door had already clattered shut behind him. “Balls.” He turned distractedly to Cas and muttered, “C’mon in, then. Don’t just stand around, boy. I’ll introduce you to Dean.” Cas, a bit taken aback at being called a boy, trailed after him.

At the door at the end of the hall, Bobby took a second to glance over his shoulder, back to the front door. Still shut. The tall boy hadn’t returned. Cas didn’t know what he’d expected – it had been about thirty seconds. Still, there was a distinct look of worry – no, more than that, suspicion – painted across his old face.

Then with a sigh and a shrug, Bobby turned away and dragged open the studio door, propped it open with a rock. It looked like someone had just picked the thing up off the street. And, Cas noticed after a second, painted a clumsy smiley face on it.

There was a lone man inside, brown hair a mess, posed on a stool with a guitar draped between his hands. Music, quiet and surprisingly light, drifted through the room – for a split second. The man stopped himself short when he saw him, fingers freezing on the string. Wide eyes flicked to Bobby, lips pursed in an almost comical scowl. Muttering a cuss under his breath, he set the guitar heavily aside. “This album – it hasn’t been released yet – people can’t hear this! Bobby, what he hell?”

Bobby’s voice came sharply from behind Cas, before he could think of an appropriate thing to say.

“He’s the cover artist. Balls, boy. What kind of idjit d’you take me for?” Dean had opened his mouth, but the elder man had already yanked his baseball cap more firmly onto his head. “Gotta sort out some paper work – keep your head on straight for thirty seconds, will ya?” He brushed past Cas, down the hall, out the door of the studio. For a second, the sound of the street burst through into the building – wheels whirring against pavement, a street musician, a woman’s stray high-pitched laughter - and then it was quiet.

Dean was staring at him as if he’d dropped out of the sky. He sat there unmoving on his stool.

After a second, Cas cleared his throat. He spoke gruffly, “Cover art.”

“Yeah.” Dean stood up abruptly, moved to some shelving in the corner of the darkened room. “Sam and I put something together.” He had his back turned, shoulders rolling slightly under the thin fabric of his grey t-shirt, reaching up to pick out a clumsily over-stuffed binder. Stray papers slid to the floor, ignored by the man now flitting through the leaflets that had managed to say in place. “Sam wanted to do something with fingers on frets, but I was thinking less precise, y’know?”

Cas didn’t ask who Sam was – or what the hell a fret might be. He was all too busy taking in the mess of his surroundings – a couple desks piled with clutter, stray instruments leaning against walls, mics standing casually straight, as if some pillar of sanity, amidst the whirlwind wreck. But, most of all, he was finding it most difficult to peel his eyes away from the man himself.

He was taller than Cas – moved with a sort of graceful, athletic finesse he could never hope to achieve with his paint-splattered clothing, hours spent doing nothing more but hunching over at design classes. Even Dean’s voice was more level – well, yet again, he supposed it had to be, considering his profession.

“Okay there, buddy?”

“I – yes.” Cas gave him a brisk nod. “What … did you have in mind?”

“Well – basically, my brother and I were pulling together a whole bunch of bullshit ideas,” he gave a sudden laugh, “You should see his sketches. Practically VanGoghs.”

It took a second for Cas to register the sarcasm, at which point he nodded quickly, gave a meek smile. He came over to look over Dean’s shoulder, at the chaotic mess of papers spilling over the binder’s edges. Covered in them were half-hearted sketches, doodles, and a patch of scribbles where they seemed to have been arguing over some now illegible title.

Cas couldn’t help but grin – there was just something so innocent about it. “Have a theme in mind?”

“Yeah, sort of. Well – I,” he balanced the binder precariously on his stool, gestured with his hands, “I mean – the album’s about this lost guy and stuff. It’s classic rock, but Sammy like’s softer things and shit, so it’s kinda got a smoother bridge …”

Cas looked at him for a moment before realizing Dean wasn’t interested in saying anything else. “I’m going to have to – could I hear it?”

Dean sobered instantly, the juvenile, proud little grin blown off his face. “No one’s heard it yet.”

“It – would help,” Cas said cautiously, reached up absently to touch the back of his neck.

Dean eyed him for a long second, view flitting to the bulk of his trench coat, as if convinced he might be hiding a recorder. Cas slipped it off, set it on the back of a chair at one of the desks, just in his blank white dress shirt and tie. He’d tried to hard to keep them neat – yet splotches of paint dotted them in clumsy clusters, like a blank white canvas. He couldn’t afford a new outfit, not with his only source of money a profession that barely paid the rent. There wasn’t much money in art.

Dean raised his eyebrows. Cas turned his pockets inside out. He leaned nervously on a stool as Dean sat down on his own, hefted his guitar gently into his hands. “Ready to be blown away?” he shot Cas a mocking wink, a smirk flashing across his features for a second. The smile remained as he looked back down at the strings, easing away in concentration only when he pressed fingers to cords. And it was to Cas’ surprise, and initial discomfort, that he realized there was something more than nervous embarrassment flooding through him.

But Dean wasn’t looking at him anymore. Cas glanced at the guitar with nervous anticipation and shifted where he stood. And, with that, Dean began to play.


End file.
